Argentinean writer, director, performer, and songwriter Lola Arias brings El Año en que nací / The year I was born to the MCA Stage. Ten performers, born during Augusto Pinochet's 1970s and 1980s dictatorship in Chile, retell their parent's stories using photographs, letters, cassette tapes, old clothing, anecdotes, and elusive recollections. The performances are part of the MCA Stage Global Stage Series and take place January 23-25 at 7:30 pm, and January 26 at 3 pm, in the Edlis Neeson Theater at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago.
Invited by the Chilean government to create a new work, Arias chose to explore the seemingly-lost histories of people who lived under the Pinochet regime. Arias identified ten performers whose parents had diverse experiences living in Pinochet-era Chile. They don their parent's clothes and tell family stories that represent a range of economic, racial, and political backgrounds. Performer-by-performer, the stories collect and converge, retracing both personal histories and the collective history of Chile.A harrowing and cathartic experience for the performers, this playful and political piece reveals the complexity and dark secrets alongside the joy and humor of lives recovered.
Lola Arias is the co-founder of Compañía Postnuclear, an Argentinean group of interdisciplinary artists. Her productions explore the boundaries between reality and fiction, using biographies and real documentation in a surreal or poetic way. In her work Striptease (2007), a baby occupied the center of the stage while the parents dueled by telephone. In El amor es un francotirador (2007), performers related true and fictional love stories amid a rock band playing live. In 2010-2012, she curatedCiudades Paralelas, a festival of urban interventions in Berlin, Buenos Aires, Warsaw, Zurich, and Singapore. Her works have been performed internationally at festivals including Steirischer Herbst, Graz; Festival d'Avignon; In Transit Festival, Berlin; We Are Here, Dublin; Spielart Festival, Munich; Alkantara Festival, Lisbon; and Radicals Festival, Barcelona. Together with Ulises Conti, she composes and plays music and has released the albums El amor es un francotirador (2007) and Los que no duermen (2011).
RELATED PROGRAMS
MCA Screen: Films by Pablo Larraίn
Saturday, January 11, 12-6 pm
Tuesday, January 14, 2-8 pm
In conjunction with Lola Arias's El Año en que naci / The year I was born, the MCA presents Chilean director Larran's trilogy. The films trace the Allende presidency's overthrow in the 1970's, which inaugurated Pinochet's 17-year military dictatorship.
· Post Mortem (Saturday at noon, Tuesday at 2 pm) is inspired by official public accounts of the assistant coroner who performed the autopsy on the former president.
· Tony Manero (Saturday 2 pm, Tuesday 4 pm) is named for John Travolta's character inSaturday Night Fever, which along with Grease, were the only American movies Pinochet's censors permitted to be shown in Chile. Tony Manero was shot on 16-millimeter film.
· No (Saturday 4 pm, Tuesday 6 pm) is a portrayal of the surprise plebiscite election in 1988 which was caused by, and unseated, Pinochet.
MCA Talk: El Año en que nací / The year I was born
Thursday, January 23, immediately following the performance
Yolanda Cesta Cursach, Associate Director of Performance Programs, leads a discussion with the artists.
MCA Studio: DO IT in Español
Saturday, January 25, 1-3 pm
Participants can join Lola Arias's ensemble in a hands-on workshop conducted in English and Spanish. Participants need to bring five personal documents about their life, such as photos, papers, or cassette tapes.
TICKET INFORMATION
El Año en que nací / The Year I Was Bornis 120 minutes with no intermission and is in Spanish with English subtitles. Performances take place January 23-25 at 7:30 pm, and January 26 at 3 pm, in the Edlis Neeson Theater, 220 East Chicago Avenue. Tickets are $28 and a limited quantity of $10 student tickets is available. The MCA Box Office is at 312.397.4010 or www.mcachicago.org. One free museum admission is granted with an MCA Stage ticket stub, valid up to seven days after the performance.
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